16 Dead After Islamists Bomb University Church Service Then Gun Down Fleeing Worshippers

The Islamist group Boko Haram has slaughtered hundreds of Christians this year in Nigeria.

The Islamists bombed the Christian service and then gunned down fleeing worshippers.Zee News reported:

Kano: Gunmen attacked church services on a university campus Sunday in northern Nigeria, using small explosives to draw out and gun down panicking worshippers in an assault that killed at least 16 people, officials said.

The attackers targeted an old section of Bayero University’s campus where religious groups use a theater and other areas to hold worship services, Kano state police spokesman Ibrahim Idris said. The assault left many others seriously wounded, Idris said.

“By the time we responded, they entered (their) motorcycles and disappeared into the neighborhood,” the commissioner said.

After the attack, police and soldiers cordoned off the campus as gunfire echoed in the surrounding streets. Abubakar Jibril, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said security forces refused to allow rescuers to enter the campus. Soldiers also turned away journalists from the university.

Andronicus Adeyemo, an official with the Nigerian Red Cross, said a canvas of local hospitals and morgues showed the attack killed at least 16 people. A number of people suffered injuries, though the aid agency did not immediately have an exact figure, Adeyemo said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility. However, Idris said the attackers used small explosives packed inside of aluminum soda cans for the assault, a method previously used by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.